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Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Student Organisation Tips

... AKA 'Complete Chaos That Works (sometimes)'

I finish university for good in six weeks time - I'm all done with education on the 31st of May! This is both a terrifying and fantastic thought train because quite frankly I have no idea what I want to do with my life, even though I'll be turning 23 5 days before I leave higher education. Crazy, huh?

Over my time at uni, my organisational skills have definitely developed. Whilst in the beginning they were not fantastic, they are now pretty damn good! Here's a brief overview of my desk-centric system:

The week planner

Bright, colourful and most importantly - Simple. It tells me where I need to be and when. This sits on the side of my desk so I can see it at a glance and note where I should be at that time. I've written in the times I want to wake up so I can set my alarm appropriately the night before.Even though it's plain, the front cover of this little week planner is covered with cute little bunnies and is so gorgeous that I barely want to use it! It came from Artbox but unfortunately isn't sold any more. I actually thought it was going to be bigger when I bought it so I was a tad disappointed when it arrived and was so small (it's really tiny - it's about half the height of a postcard) as I was imagining something more similar to the A4 Paperchase weekly planners. But it does the job and it takes up hardly any room on my desk!

The list pad

Purple is one of my favourite colours so when I spotted this list pad in Staples for just 83p I knew I wanted it! It has 100 sheets of paper each in the same style and it sits on the side of my desk so I can jot down anything that comes to mind whilst I'm working away. I currently have three different pages on the go and I haven't pulled any off - they're really well bound at the top so they're all on fine even though I've been flipping between them. One page has to-do lists for uni work, one has random uni work notes, and one has 'other' to do lists on it. Typically, all my to-do lists here are long term assignment related ones. The notes section at the bottom is really handy too.
I'll let you into a secret - I actually bought this with the idea of cutting it down for filofax inserts, but in the end I decided it worked just fine as it was. And I'm pretty happy I kept it that way :)

The post it

Ok, this actually a new addition to my organisation - normally I keep my post-it to do lists on my dashboard in my FF. But as I'm using my filofax every day now it's impossible to have it open on two pages and therefore the to-do list gets ignored! So I've taken to sticking the post-it on the side of my desk where I can see it from across the room and know that it should not be ignored ;) Currently my post-it to do list has a simple outline of all the things I have to do over the next month as I keep forgetting what is actually coming up uni assignment wise; when you have so many things to do it gets confusing! Admittedly this is probably a step too far and doesn't really need to be in my organisation system but I enjoy it being there.

Finally... the big Daddy of the system...

Filofax

My filo is always very messy - I tend to write as I think of things and I just can't seem to get the hang of making it all pretty and lovely. Plus when I'm rushed I write like a child so half the handwriting is neat and half is grossly untidy... It makes me sad. Anyway. In my organisation system, my filofax is where I write down basically everything; if I need to know about it or do then it's probably on these pages! I have planned meals for the week, written in all my appointments (well, almost all), to do tasks, places I'm going, things I want to achieve and occasionally a nice quote or pretty bit of washi tape. I carry it with me wherever I go even though it's getting a bit heavy now :/ When I finish uni I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with my FF, as when I've not got deadlines and things to do I don't bother writing in it. I'm transitioning the back section into a job hunting guide (based on Paper Lovestory's amazing guide here) but I don't know how much more I will be able to use it for... That's another post though that I will write in a few weeks time!

So that's basically how I organise myself now that I have a lot of appointments to keep up with! The temptation is to spend my time organising but I guess at some point I will need to actually do the work on the to do lists, haha. If you're heading to uni then getting organised is a great idea and if you're leaving it like I am soon, then good luck!

I wish Paperchase had had their A4 ones in stock when I wanted it originally because the Artbox one is tiny but I think it's worked out better this way because my desk isn't massive :) Paperchase now have a new range of A4 sized ones in stock - or they have smaller (A5 ish) ones too :) x